Being an ‘Old Lady’ Role Model in Hollywood? Not Easy

LOS ANGELES — My first encounter with Sheila Nevins, the president of HBO Documentary Films, was in 2011 at the Sundance Film Festival. Her greeting involved an unprintable rant about thin motel walls and oversexed festivalgoers. I won’t lie: It knocked the wind out of me.

“I don’t talk like that anymore,” she said last week in her signature rasp. “I’m trying to get into heaven. I’m a sweet little old lady now.”

What a pity that would be. Ms. Nevins, 78, stands out for her track record — she has overseen more than 1,000 documentaries over four decades, personally winning 31 Emmys in the process — but she also is that rarest of Hollywood creatures: a plain-spoken executive.

For the first time, Ms. Nevins has turned her gaze inward. On Tuesday, Flatiron Books published “You Don’t Look Your Age … And Other Fairy Tales.” It’s a collection of short stories, essays and poems that sketch her life story and reflect on what it’s like to be a female executive in show business, in particular an older one.

She does not discuss her films. (“What am I going to say, ‘We used this lens here and that one there?’’’ she told me. “Boring!”) But she does write about her childhood, the cosmetic indignities of aging and the travails of motherhood, including accidentally ripping the tail off her son’s hamster and subsequent Neosporin applications to its “anal cavity” with a Q-tip.

Below is a condensed version of my conversation with her about the book.

How often does your lack of a filter get you into trouble?

SHEILA NEVINS Very often. A boss once said to me, “Do you ever have an unexpressed thought?” Probably not. But there was a point in my career when I did have to learn to lean back. My candor now depends on who is in the room. How high up the ladder those men are.

Men. Interesting. I think your frankness makes the book. I’m not sure I needed to know the details of your gallstone removal, though.

NEVINS The hospital gave them to me afterward, and I brought them to the office in a little cup. I made people guess what they were. No one got it right. (Howl of laughter.) I think I might not be normal. Do you want them? I still have them somewhere.

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I think I’ll pass.

NEVINS I think you are really rude.

You write that you felt it was necessary at HBO to hide your age. Really?

NEVINS Oh, so true. Older women are terrified they will be disregarded or discounted. Older men get to be called “distinguished.” There is no equivalent word for women. Nobody wants to listen to an old broad.

How do you know?

NEVINS I work in media! All people talk about is wanting a young audience — young, young, young — and you read the writing on the wall. It’s not like you pipe up in a meeting and say, “Actually, older brains can think smart and young too.” You go and get Botox.

Why are you talking about your age now?

NEVINS It’s time to be old out loud. I’m trying to own it. I’m trying to be a role model. There aren’t many old lady role models. But it’s not easy. In fact, even saying that I start to feel a little weepy. I don’t seem to be able to embrace being in my late 70s. I just can’t tolerate it on some level.

Toward the end of the book you have a punch-in-the-gut line: “I’m angry that it’s almost over, just when I understand I’ve just begun.” Was that hard to confront?

NEVINS It was much harder to write about my son, who has Tourette’s, although he told me I could. The next hardest was the story about my mother. I really didn’t want to go back there. In fact, that was the one I almost didn’t write. And that one — that one! — was the one Meryl Streep most connected with and wanted to read for the audiobook. What a dope I am.

You got an incredible group of celebrities to read chapters — Kathy Bates, Martha Stewart, Gloria Vanderbilt, Lily Tomlin, RuPaul. How did you manage that?

NEVINS And I didn’t pay anyone. Hah! I don’t really know how I did it. It’s impossible to think that Meryl Streep might agree to read your story. So you don’t think. You just do. With her, I knew someone who has an office next to hers, and we got it to her assistant. Suddenly I’m opening a letter from Meryl Streep saying she wants to do it. I almost passed out.

You know you’re one of the true originals, right?

NEVINS No, I don’t. I don’t like that. I think you pay an enormous price for being “an original.” I think I’m empathetic. I catch rising stars. I catch falling stars.